Tips and Answers to Your Questions
Deciding to Restructure

Ally to Compete?

We usually think of alliances - whether low level collaborations or full scale mergers - as tools for helping nonprofits to work more closely together. But it is also possible for nonprofits to form alliances primarily for competitive purposes.

For example, if your nonprofit fears the entrance of a new competitor into your market – perhaps a well-funded larger nonprofit or even a for-profit company – one option is to form an alliance with others in your community aimed at protecting your collective market share against the newcomer. Where previously you may have competed with these other organizations, now you might see a greater threat from the outside, and decide to work together.

You might decide to pool marketing dollars, as with arts organizations that advertise their seasons in the same mailers and print ads. You could decide to integrate services, so that clients can move from one level of care to another seamlessly. You could decide to centralize your client intake process for all the partners. A popular move in some fields is to develop a single billing or client tracking system that meets government requirements but might be too expensive for any one group to develop for itself.

Remember, when you are faced with a competitive threat, you do not need to face it alone. Chances are others in your field or community are facing the same threat, and working together could strengthen you all.